Blesséd Desires
by King Dave of Blingees
Summary: Have you ever felt a strong pull to get caught in the rain? Bury yourself in a mound of snow? Lose your footing at the top of a staircase just to see what it's like? There is no wish for self harm here, only Blesséd Desires.
1. Prologue

**Blesséd Desire**

**Prologue**

_Wait,_  
_Wait for the night._  
_Wait for the cold,_  
_Let it consume you._

_Don't even try_  
_to fight,_  
_Not when it feels_  
_so right._

_A strange desire_  
_but nothing new,_  
_The feeling was always there_  
_waiting to get to you_

_Is this weakness_  
_or is it strength?_  
_There is no answer_  
_but do keep faith._

* * *

He went out into the cold. Why? He was not sure, but he could feel strong desire in his soul. The combination of night and cold called to him, trying to lure him out. Calls and howls reverberated through his skull. Follow the frost. Follow the stars. In the small hours of the night, he slipped away. Now, he walked among the white- bright and yet dim against the shadowed sky.

No long did his vision show him the sea of white before him. Why was that? The snow, the cold, he felt it pressed against him. Why? Had he fallen? He supposed so. The cold reached out to him, welcoming him into its chilly embrace. Something about it felt right to him. His desire was drawn to it. With a smile on his face, he succumbed.

* * *

It was cold. Freezing. How did he get here? Where was here? The memories weren't there. Or maybe they were. It was hard to tell. His thoughts were fuzzy. The smallest attempt to focus was a challenge. Each breath he took was shallow. He tried to move. Nothing happened. His body refused to respond to the signals his brain sent. It hurt- physically and mentally. His body was numb, his mind wracked. He felt trapped.

What could he do? Absolutely nothing.

The cold overcame his weakened body, and the darkness consumed his mind once more.

* * *

A sharp pain woke him. There were voice. Whose voices? He could not place them at the moment. His mind could not process what they said. It was like drifting. Someone had lifted him. He was being carried now. He could feel the bobbing movement of walking. Whose arms were holding him up? Whose shoulder was his head rested on? The contact felt like fire against his icy skin. He could not move. He could not even feel his limbs. Something shook him. He was shivering something fierce. A voice spoke to him. All he heard was buzzing. He tried to open his eyes. Eyelids stayed in place. He tried to speak. Lips parted faintly. No sound emerged. More voices spoke around him. What were they saying? The buzzing voices were rushed, panicked even. Was it because of him? He wanted to apologize. He hated being a bother.

He tried to speak again. A single, pained sound emerged from lips blue from cold. More voices. The grip holding him became tighter. Another round of shivering wracked his body. Whoever was carrying him began to move faster. What little focus his mind had was becoming fuzzy. He did not want to return to the darkness. He wanted answers. He wanted to stay aware until he could provide the answers himself.

The resistance was useless. The darkness overpowered him again.

* * *

Consciousness returned again. It was warmer and he could feel his limbs. Why could he not move them. Were those blankets wrapped around him? Maybe. Everything was warm. His skin, his head. A thought he didn't quite understand passed through his mind, some wispy feeling of longing towards the cold. It made little sense to him. He tried to move again and heard the sound of footsteps getting closer.

"God, I don't know what to do with you." He head a voice laced with concern and worry. The voice was familiar this time, but his mind was still too fuzzy to place it. Only a soft groan escaped his lips when he attempted to reply. There was a brief pause before he heard the voice again. "Are you awake?"

He felt a cool hand against his forehead. "You're still burning up. Why do you do this to yourself? I've been so worried- we all have." A sigh. So he was being a bother. He desperately wanted to apologize. "If you can hear me, then go back to sleep. You need to rest. Hopefully when you're awake you'll be able to eat something."

The hand brushed lightly across his forehead before its presence left him. Footsteps sounded, but he could tell they did not go far. It had to be a friend of his who was taking care of him. Since he didn't have many friends, there weren't a lot of people the voice could belong to. He wanted to work out who it was. His mind protested at the strain. Sleep pulled at him and though he did not want to sleep again, his mind readily gave in.

* * *

This time, eyes fluttered as consciousness came. So those were blankets on him. He was not at his own home. This bed was not his. It was probably the voice's home, the home of the friend that was caring for him. He tried to sit up, but only managed pushing himself higher up the pillow his head lay on. He decided to test out his voice, but all that came was a cough that wracked his frame. A moment later footsteps could be heard rushing towards the door of the room.

"You're awake!" It was that same voice. He now registered that whom it belonged to could probably be considered his closest friend. He saw said friend standing in the doorway and then yelling out it. "He woke up!"

Weakly, he tried to speak up again. "Hi."

He nearly flinched at how course and hard to hear his voice was. How long had he been asleep for his voice to become so choked? The friend was now beside the bed he lay on, once again with a hand against his forehead. "I am so glad that you're finally awake. For real awake. You really gave us all a scare, you know that?"

He looked away from the friend in a moment of guilt before returning his gaze. There was one word he knew he had to croak out. "Sorry."

As he expected, the friend only waved it off. "How are you feeling, Ryou?"

* * *

AN: So I have this feeling that there might be a bit of a style shift between the prologue and the rest of the story whoops.


	2. Chapter 1

**Blesséd Desires**

**Chapter 1**

_Do not deny_  
_this pull that you feel,_  
_the wish to fly,_  
_the will to heal,_

_Caught up in a world of fires_  
_You can not resist your Blesséd Desires_

_Nothing is wrong,_  
_your mind is sound,_  
_lost in this throng_  
_'till you're dead in the ground._

_Caught up in a world of fires_  
_You must give in to your Blesséd Desires_

* * *

Malik Ishtar has had a rather unusual life and has known some rather unusual people. Needless to say, it takes a lot to surprise him. Even with all the unusual everywhere around him, he has managed to recover and strive forth from the train wreck that was Battle City. He had friends now. He did things that normal people did. None of that truly removed the unusual from his life, though. Many people he knew were still the unusual sort, not that he was very usual himself. Lately, however, it seemed as though the person in his life that has become the most unusual was one Ryou Bakura.

While he may seem to be a few cards short of a deck at times, Malik was not stupid. He knew that Ryou Bakura had been through hell and back, emotionally and partly physically, through his life. Malik's own life hadn't been a walk through the park, but somehow he seemed to cope better once everything was said and done- once the yamis were gone, and life regained some semblance of normality. Ryou Bakura never seemed to get the normalcy he had craved for so long. Malik found himself worried for the boy

Ryou and he had been getting along as friends for a good while, ever since Malik set to mend some wrongdoings. What had started out as a an apology and a little pity had turned into a close friendship that he was glad to have. As much as the two were friends with Yugi's group, they just couldn't relate to them as well as they could each other, save Yugi. Even though there was little chance of Malik plotting world domination again, they were a bit weary of him at times. Ryou Bakura had it worse. Because of all the things his darkness had done, it didn't seem like the others would ever fully trust him.

Yugi was the great exception. Yugi understood them.

Malik worried for Ryou Bakura. He had been sporadically since the incident in the park. They were with Yugi and the gang, and, after a while, he realized Ryou was no longer with them. The boy had gone into the more wooded area of the park, strayed from the path, and got himself lost. When Malik asked the white haired boy why, Ryou could not come up with an answer. The best he got was that Ryou Bakura had felt a great pull to do what he did and couldn't very well have denied it. Similar events had been happening ever since. This is what had made Ryou Bakura so spectacularly unusual.

Yugi had suggested therapy-any shadow magic being edited out of stories, of course. Ryou Bakura had agreed it was for the best. Dr. Bakura refused to put his son in therapy. If Malik ever met that man, he swore he would punch the bastard in the balls. Ryou did not argue the issue with his father; he would probably never bring up therapy again. His father did not want to believe his son was crazy or had any problems he would have to deal with. The man wanted to pretend everything was hunky dory as he pranced through Egypt doing digs.

Malik hated that man.

They had tried other methods to find Ryou safer ways to cope. The boy had started carrying a little journal with him wherever he went. In it, he would jot down strange notes to himself, make small doodles, write somewhat disconcerting poems, and occasionally write was seemed to be a letter. As far as his everyday life went, this was a helpful tool the boy embraced. Yet, it didn't stop the strange things Ryou Bakura would sometimes do.

Every time he was questioned why, Ryou Bakura would give the same answer. He felt a strong pull, almost like his life depended on doing whatever the pull told him. Some of the things he did could be considered self harm, but Ryou Bakura would never self harm, the very thought scared him. He insisted that when he did his strange antics, he felt he was doing something good for himself, self harm would never cross his mind.

Malik worried for that boy.

* * *

Two days ago, Ryou Bakura was found asleep in the snow, nearly frozen to death. Malik had went to Ryou's house that morning to hang out. When there was no answer by door or phone, he picked the lock and searched the house. It was empty. Quickly, he called Yugi and a search party was organized. After nearly an hour of searching, they found a barely-there trail of footprints in the snow that lead them to their white haired friend.

Malik wasted no time in picking up his friend and announcing that after he wrapped Ryou in at least three blankets, he would be taking Ryou to his home; and that's exactly what he did. The rest of the group had followed. When they arrived at the Ishtar residence, Isis Ishtar announced that Ryou Bakura had a fever and also needed to be treated for hypothermia, which meant shared body heat and no clothes. Malik and Yugi volunteered. The two of them spent the rest of that day doing their best to bring warmth back to their friend. Yugi eventually had to leave, but Malik continued to share body heat with the boy through the night. In the morning, Isis told him that it was safe to leave Ryou on his own; so he did, though not without checking on his friend periodically.

One of the times Malik checked on the boy, Ryou had seemed almost awake, but wasn't quite there. He thought out loud to his partly-conscious friend. Ryou Bakura still had a fever, but it had gone down when the hypothermia left. Malik sighed and knew had to find a way to help him.

Yugi, along with a few others, came over around noon to see how Ryou was doing. Malik and Yugi had talked. Ryou's impulses had caused him bits of harm before, but this wasn't just a fever from standing in the rain for a few hours or a bloody nose from falling over and not catching himself.

"I'm really worried about him, Yugi." said Malik.

"I know. I am too, but I don't know what we can do." Yugi agreed, concern clearly printed on his face. "It's not like we can watch him all the time. Even if we did, by the time he has another weird impulse, we wouldn't be all that on guard anymore."

"What he needs is professional help, but his bastard of a father won't let him get it." Malik spat out, a fist clenched. At a look from Yugi, he took a few deep breaths and calmed down.

"You know," said Yui. "We haven't tried just having him talk to one of us. Now that I'm saying it, it seems so simple. I wonder why neither of us brought it up before."

Malik felt like he was just slapped in the face for being so dense as to not see such an obvious solution. "I'll talk with him, Yugi. I can do this."

Yugi nodded and smiled.

* * *

Around an hour later, loud coughing sounded from the room that held Ryou Bakura. Malik immediately jumped up from his seat and ran over to the room. He opened the door to find his best friend up and coughing.

"You're awake!" He turned to yell out the door to the others. "He woke up!"

"Hi." Ryou's voice sounded so weak and coarse, Malik noted. He went over to his friend's bedside, a sad smile on his face as he laid a hand on the other's forehead, pushing white locks away in the process.

"I am so glad that you're finally awake. For real awake." Malik told him, relieved. "You really gave us all a scare, you know that?"

Malik saw an emotion flash through Ryou's eyes and knew what was coming. "Sorry."

His friend always apologized for these things. If Ryou Bakura could go back and keep himself from doing such stupid and harmful things, he probably would. Malik brushed off the apology without a second thought.

"How are you feeling, Ryou?"


End file.
